Three games in, Padres–Dodgers has lived up to the billing as the best rivalry in baseball between perhaps the two most fully-stacked teams in the game.
This weekend’s series at San Diego delivered the drama, with an extra-innings thriller in the opener, a Mookie Betts game-saver in what turned out to be the rubber game, and a clutch Eric Hosmer hit after a sterling Trevor Bauer performance in the finale.
Oh, and there was the jawing, too. There was lots of jawing.
These two teams didn’t keep their feelings private. The benches briefly cleared in the 10th on Friday night. Clayton Kershaw and Jorge Mateo disagreed about swing mechanics on Saturday.
And after Sunday’s game, Bauer took to his favorite arena, the Twitterverse, to lay a few more lumps on the men who’d just crawled away with one measly victory.
His first missile was meant for Blake Snell, who used a good chunk of his press availability to whine about the way Bauer treated his mound.
https://twitter.com/BauerOutage/status/1383940460050227205?s=20
Dodgers righty Trevor Bauer went after Blake Snell Sunday.
To be honest, this is a case of, “He said, he said.” We have no idea whose toe really dug a hole in the Petco Park mound on Sunday afternoon.
Clearly, though, Snell felt like riding the momentum of his team’s win to get a late shot in at baseball’s biggest target, despite the fact that he pitched just…five innings in this one, which appears to be par for the course this year.
Perhaps Kevin Cash was right after all?
Bauer fought back only briefly with words, though (a rarity), but instead let a simple quote tweet of his actions stand tall. He left the Padres with a parting message: one of Manny Machado’s worst swings-and-misses ever, courtesy of his breaking ball.
https://twitter.com/BauerOutage/status/1383941032539156482?s=20
The next time these two teams face each other? Well, it won’t be long; the Padres come to Dodger Stadium on Thursday for a four-game set. You’ll see all the same familiar names throwing their best fastballs and drawing catcher’s interference calls, but in the best ballpark in baseball this time.
Don’t get too comfortable, anyone.
Dodgers: Yu Darvish cracking Clayton Kershaw joke lightens rivalry with Padres
San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish cracked a funny joke about Clayton Kershaw. The two were teammates with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2017.